Tag Archives: popovich

This may have been a great win for the Warriors players. It may have helped their psyche a bit, to see the chinks in the armor of this great Spurs team. And boy are there chinks. Chinks you could drive a tank through. Chinks so big that you wonder if the World Champs will ever get healthy and organized enough to become a factor come playoff time. Continue reading →

There’s been quite a bit of talk this off-season, largely initiated by new head coach Steve Kerr, that the Warriors are going to try to emulate the Spurs motion offense in the coming season. Sounds perfect for the Warriors, doesn’t it? Like the Spurs, the Warriors roster is loaded with high-IQ, high-character, and unselfish players with great passing ability. Spurs offense, here we come! Right?

This was truly a Game Three, in that the Spurs broke the all-time Finals record for made three-pointers. Records like this are made to be broken when teams play with four legitimate three-point shooters around one big man, as the Spurs are doing.

And very quietly, completely unreported by the mainstream media, the face of the NBA game is changing.

If, as the saying goes, a series doesn’t start until the home team loses, I guess this series just started. And what a fascinating game this was. My recapping engine is currently recuperating from hip flexor surgery and another ankle debridement, but here are some quick thoughts: Continue reading →

The Spurs and Heat are ready to rumble, and to my mind it’s Nellieball III, the third straight all-Nellieball Finals we’ve been privileged to witness. Some may disagree, pointing to the Spurs conventional starting lineup of Splitter and Duncan. But I think the Spurs will spend the greater part of every game playing a Nellieball lineup with a stretch-four alongside one conventional big man. There are 6 three-point shooting fours in this series: Bonner, Diaw and Leonard for the Spurs; Lebron, Bosh and Battier for the Heat. And two of those players have seen major minutes at stretch-five: Diaw and Bosh.